Someone Tell Stephen Hawking That Magical Creation Is Impossible, That Nothingness Cannot Have A Characteristic, And That It Is Not Science That Tells Us With Certainty There Is No God

Stephen Hawking is great and happens to be correct about there not being a god, as we all know (or think we might, for all you 99%ers), and he is an excellent example of why physicists need to be reminded that they have necessary epistemological foundations to their knowledge and the ability to obtain it. We do not live in one universe of many. There is one universe. It consists of distinct and possibly overlapping expansions. This expansion should be called a sub-verse or mini-verse or something of the like and the universe should not be replaced with a term like multiverse. There is only one everything. There is one objective universe, it is eternal. There is nothing outside of it or before it or after it. There is only what is. Everything that is not, is not. There is no place outside of everything. This is the one universe and we are also within one of the many possible and possibly existent sub-verses or unique expansions. It really is a simple distinction. For some law of the universe to have an affect on nothingness, there must be something to begin with. Nothingness cannot have a characteristic. So a local expansion may appear to come out of nothing from our perspective, due to some underlying nature of existence. But it is not from an underlying characteristic of nothingness. It cannot come from nowhere. The energy must come from somewhere. Somewhere else in the universe, outside our, not yet existent, expansion. Something from nothing equals magic and it is not possible. 0+0=0 and it always will. An infinite state of actual nothingness (oxymoron), would be eternal. Unless, that is, it has characteristics, but then it would not be a state of nothingness. It would be something, with identity. A state of infinite nothingness is irrational and impossible.

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You are not paying attention. It is at first view antagonistic and oh, my god, against what postmodern 'scientists' think. Slow down and read it literally. I never claimed a better understanding of physics or math. Krauss and Hawking are not using math or physics to come to the conclusion that a state of nothingness is something you can have knowledge about. I have a much clearer understanding of the epistemological foundations of science than do these physicists. They are out of their league. This isn't physics. It's philosophy. They can more accurately describe things within the limit of our perceptions, but I can easily recognize when they begin to psychologize, guess and claim things about that which is impossible to have knowledge of. There are contradictions all over this 'something from nothing' idea. Our entire culture is awash in a postmodern mystical view of the world, including most modern physicist. Of course contradictions don't bother people with this philosophical foundation.

Lawrence Krauss states that we have isolated a section of empty space and within this 'empty' space, particles pop in and out of existence, seemingly from 'nothing'. This cannot be extended to the entire universe came out of nothing. An artificial 'empty' space is still curved space-time. What curves it? Matter and energy elsewhere in the universe. He is the cosmologist/physicist and states this theory of something from nothing while simultaneously omitting the fact that any 'empty' space in this universe must also be curved, i.e., have gravitons, fundamental strings, or whatever transmits this curvature. Just because we cannot perceive what these particles come from does not mean that they come from nothing. That, again, makes no sense. A true universal nothingness would not have any characteristic, including curvature, else it would not be nothing.

Couldn't resist dropping in for a quick cross-post on the Krauss video but mustn't stay!

"DETECTING IT HERE" is a true classic! Here goes:

Would you not agree that the concept of “nothing” has, for a very long time now, been quite foreign to science?Can you point to any evidence for its existence?If you can’t, does that not qualify it for inclusion in the paranormal?

I did not find the video lecture at all impressive. Most of the material is old hat and has been covered much more effectively by such as Sagan and Feynmann. Hard acts to follow, I must agree.The rest is largely speculative, although a better fit to the present “big picture” than some (not all) of the competing models.

And like Kaku, who is perhaps by far the worst offender, he tends to conflate hypothesis with evidence.

In one example of such skulduggery he develops his preferred version of “dark matter”. Then – watch carefully for the distraction – he presents us with very technical sounding hardware, an actual experiment carried out at various locations around the world. Wow! this is guaranteed to surely impress the naive viewer. We even have the caption “DETECTING IT HERE”But watch for the sleight of hand, he effectively glosses over the critical fact that WE AIN’T DETECTING IT HERE. Which would be a much more appropriate and honest caption!

If, one day it is unambiguously detected this will bring the model out of the world of mathematical speculation and into the domain of science. But for the time being it has no hard evidence to back it up. Remember, even the existence of the Higgs boson, a key component of the generally preferred (but not the only) model of particle physics. is looking a bit shaky at present.

The prophet Krauss preaches humility but fails to practice it. He “knows” the universe is flat, he “knows” the number of protons and neutrons in the universe. Just as the string theorists who he, quite rightly, derides “know” that there are 11 (or whatever number is currently fashionable) of spatial dimensions. He, of course makes no mention that there are other theoretical physicists, even those like himself more closely associated with the mainstream, who hold contrary opinions.

Oh, COME ON! Are you really going to accuse a world-class physicist of either not doing the math or somehow conning a peer review? [THERE's a real trick!] Are you that much better versed in math or physics than Krauss is? The YouTube presentation was aimed at a general audience and certainly not a review committee, and if it lacks detail in consideration for such an audience, I would not be surprised. Before a peer review, I have no doubt but that the data and calculations would have been laid bare, available for verification and critique, and if there had been any confirmed mistake or misapprehension, Krauss would have been the first to admit to it.

Oh, BTW, math starts with the null set - {} - nothing ... then advances itself by enumerating all the subsets available, those being the null set and the set represented by the null set - ({}, {{}}) - and all at once, out of nothing, you have two SOMETHINGS (gad, I don't believe that I remember this from Philosophy of Mathematics, 40 years ago!), and using a similar process, the entire integer number set is available. Something from nothing, indeed!

This new presentation and idea surfacing is what brought on this post. He inadequately describes his theory, not because he isn't mathematically incompetent or a poor communicater, but because he is following his own math inappropriately into the world of epistemology and unknowingly incorrect. He would have never learned basic math, which all his theories depend on, if something could come from nothing. There can be no characteristic of nothingness that things come out of. There is no origin. It did not begin. That is irrational. On a more basic level than science, which science depends on.

Knowledge is contextual. This is true. But you cannot consider something knowledge unless it is both contextually and hierarchically noncontradictory in comparison to all other facts in a knowledge base. This is different than belief. We should believe things we know, but many people believe things prematurely or even in the face of contradictory evidence. We cannot consider what people believed about the shape of the Earth as knowledge. We can say with knowledge that the world is round, because we have appropriate context. Someone incorrectly claiming the world is flat does not have proper context. They haven't seen an edge to make a claim about it. But if someone from 5,000 years ago claims that everything they know about entails being on the ground where the sky is up and dirt is down, then they are correct. They would have a different definition of world, maybe. If they said that all of existence is flat Earth, then they would be wrong. Similarly, if you define swans as all white, then all swans are white. But we don't. Since Darwin and subsequent understanding of genetics and biology, I would say that, yes people may have thought all swans were white, but they were wrong. That was not knowledge. They may have believed it, but so what. They were wrong to claim it as knowledge, unless they explicitly define them as white. But they likely defined species as something capable of mating and they should not have said something cannot be just because they haven't seen it. I am not suggesting that there aren't things we don't know about, just that things that are impossible are not in this category of possible unknown things. If people in the past were more careful to distinguish between unknown possible things and unknowable impossible things, they could have describes what they saw knowledgeably. If you are careful about your words, then knowledge can be properly asserted. Literally, it is impossible to get something from nothing, any belief notwithstanding. This can be known because of what else we know of reality and epistemology. We can be sure that 2+2=4. And we should believe it. There is no way for it not to be true. As in 0+0=0. For if you could get something from nothing, our most basic laws of epistemology, which we use to think and communicate and learn and do science, would not exist. Of course there is more to science than Newtonian physics. There is quantum theory, particle physics, relativity, string theory, cosmology, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics.....The world is fundamentally the same since Newton, we are simply becoming better at describing it. Newtonian physics doesn't stop working, it is just less precise when considering the very small, the very fast, the very short...the extremes, near the limits of our perception. These more complex forms of scientific and mathematical study are dependent on their more basic forms being valid. You cannot use the process of verification to verify that your process of validation is invalid. You cannot use your eyes to see that your eyes don't exist. Physics entails knowing; if it is beyond our knowing, it is not physics. If something occurs, it is not impossible. You cannot be serious about the impossible occurring. That violates every aspect of cognition. I believe we can have knowledge about reality and we use language to communicate this knowledge. If you think we can see the impossible, then you clearly do not think we have the ability to communicate knowledge to each other. It would make language meaningless.

A unicorn-like horse-like animal without magical powers may exist somewhere, that is possible, but a magical creature that is invisible at the same time it is pink is impossible. It is impossible, but the scenario where invisible pink unicorns exists is the same scenario that thought is impossible. Since that would precliude this conversation, and I know that this conversation, regarldess of some 'unbelieveable abst

Lawrence Krauss states that we have isolated a section of empty space and within this 'empty' space, particles pop in and out of existence, seemingly from 'nothing'. This cannot be extended to the entire universe came out of nothing. An artificial 'empty' space is still curved space-time. What curves it? Matter and energy elsewhere in the universe. He is the cosmologist/physicist and states this theory of something from nothing while simultaneously omitting the fact that any 'empty' space in this universe must also be curved, i.e., have gravitons, fundamental strings, or whatever transmits this curvature. Just because we cannot perceive what these particles come from does not mean that they come from nothing. That, again, makes no sense. A true universal nothingness would not have any characteristic, including curvature, else it would not be nothing.

"It also applies to the statement that "something" cannot arise from "nothing"."

-Magic it is, then.

The law of identity is proof of the non-existence of god, that is if you are willing to think about it and more than just a little bit more than it takes to know there are no fairies.

And by god, what the hell about Intelligent Design? There is one causally dependent objective omniverse (I don't care what we call it). It encompasses everything. There never has and never could have been a universal all-encompassing state of nothingness, from which this locality of space-time came from. If matter and energy can come from a local vacuum, fine, this still entails their being some nature to existence as opposed to non-existence, that caused it. Or else you are talking magic.

It always saddens me to see that so many self-professed atheists display an irrational zeal that would put many theists to shame. MCTs post is just a series of specious metaphysical speculations.

The true empiricist does not purport to prove that there is no god.

Since there is not a skerrick of evidence to support that notion which derives purely from myth the concept is simply unworthy of consideration.

The same applies to the idea of a multiverse. No evidence!

It also applies to the statement that "something" cannot arise from "nothing".

That's simply a belief and has no evidential basis. In fact, if you equate the "vacuum" with "nothing" (I don't, personally) the quantum theory implies that mass continually arises from nothing.

To return to the essentially daft "god" idea. Theists do appear have one evidential straw to clutch at.

That is the increasingly apparent "fine tuning" of our universe. The greatest indications of which are to be found in chemistry and biology rather than the much vaunted physical parameters.

But the common misconception that "fine tuning of the universe for life" implies the existence of some kind of "creator" or designer is seriously flawed..

In fact nothing could be further from the truth.

There is certainly a great wealth of evidence of seemingly inevitable directionality and “just right” conditions to be found downstream of the usually quoted dimensionless physical prameters, especially in such areas as geology, chemistry and biology.

Most clearly observed in the way in which the the properties and timely abundances of the chemical elements and their compounds not only have allowed, but have made virtually inevitable the observed evolution of technology in the medium of the collective imagination of our species.

This persistent and pervasive pattern is not to be ignored or swept under the mat by the very unparsimonious artifice of positing multiverses with infinitely varying physical properties.

Nor does it require for interpretation "intelligent design" which is essentially a notion derived from the hearsay of superstitious mythology.

A broad evolutionary model of the kind outlined in “The Goldilocks Effect: What Has Serendipity Ever Done For Us?” will suffice to account for these patterns on a straightforward empirical basis. At the expense of swallowing a few human conceits! The book is avaiable as free download in e-book formats from the “Unusual Perspectives” website